Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
It wasn’t a protest.
Guido Bondioli called it a “peace action” on the evening of Oct. 2 as he and two others appeared in front of the Crawfordsville Post Office to promote the idea of “peace.”
They held signs saying, “Being Peace,” and another promoting the formation of a federal Department of Peace, with a presidential cabinet member.
“It’s my opinion that peace in the big picture is the summation of moments of internal peace and individual interaction,” said Karen Clausen, another demonstrator. “I’ve looked at different organizations. I don’t want to be ‘anti-something.’ I don’t want a bunch of negativity coming up.”
What she does want to do is to be peace as an individual, to live it individually, she said. “We make the world, each one of us.”
Their peace action wasn’t really tied directly to the war in Iraq or any other specific event, although “I would sure like for us to be done with the war,” she said. “And I don’t think you get to peace through war.”
“I’m out here getting people to run the word ‘peace’ through their minds,” Bondioli said. “In today’s society, where people are programmed by the media, the word peace doesn’t enter their minds.”
He said he hoped holding a sign along a roadside would put the word “peace” in the minds of passersby for a few minutes, spreading the idea of peace.
Chris Page came from Eugene to support Bondioli.
“I’m a grandpa,” he said. “I want my grandkids and me, frankly, to live in a world that’s peaceful.”
He believes people are ready to sign on with peace, he said. He also stressed peace on an individual level.
“We have to be the change we want to see in the world,” he said. “The most important thing for me in the rest of my life is making that happen.”
To that end, he has formed a group called Peace Trains, which will travel the country promoting peace, although the group is not interested in being “anti-anything,” he said. It is not anti-Bush or anti-Karl Rove.
“It’s definitely not anti-troop,” said Page, a Vietnam veteran. “I know what that’s like.”
Rather than looking for others to bring about peace, Clausen said, it needs to take place in individuals.
“I believe this is going to happen in my lifetime if people start practicing it,” Page said. “We just need a critical mass for a paradigm shift.”
The proposed Department of Peace, with which Page’s group is aligning itself, is legislation introduced in 2005 to form a new cabinet position. The department’s function will be to research, articulate and facilitate nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict.
Page can be contacted at (541) 688-8787 or by e-mail at [email protected]. A new Web site will open in the next week or two at http://www.peacetrains.org.
For more information about the proposed Department of Peace, visit http://www.thepeacealliance.org.